Business School one of top 100

By Wes Crosby | News Editor

The A.J. Palumbo-Donahue School of Business, in its centennial year, has again been named one of the nation’s top 100 undergraduate business schools and received accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International.

Bloomberg Businessweek named the A.J. Palumbo School of Business Administration among the nation’s top 100 undergraduate business schools for the third consecutive year. The school was ranked 96th, ahead of schools from the University of Colorado-Boulder and West Virginia University.

William Spangler, associate business dean, said he thinks the rankings reflect the continued improvement the school has enjoyed over the past several years.

“Everyone here is absolutely thrilled,” Spangler said. “What’s particularly noteworthy is that there are 2,000 business schools across the nation and this ranking means we are clearly in the top five percent. This ranking goes to the low 100s and believe me number 110 is bragging about being in that spot.”

The school’s ability to place students in high-quality jobs in well established companies is what Spangler said he thinks was the main basis of the ranking.

“I think it was about what kind of quality we offer,” Spangler said. “Some rankings are subjective, but the Bloomberg rankings are based on actual data. It shows that we’ve been successful placing our students and it shows that we offer academic quality that is comparable to the best schools in the country.”

“The marketplace is looking for signals of quality.”

Alan Miciak

Business School Dean

Businessweek uses SAT scores, student-faculty ratios, class size, the percentage of students with internships and the amount of time they devote to class work to compile the rankings.

The school also received accreditation from AACSB again, which Alan Miciak, dean of the Business School, said is a “reaffirmation” of the school’s ability to “not only maintain our performance, but enhance it.”

He also said that coupled with the top 100 ranking, the Business School plans to use the accomplishments as recruiting tools.

“I think the marketplace is looking for signals of quality,” Miciak said. “Students look for a school by the individual program and it’s important to be visible along some of these external assessments. I think the ranking, the accreditation along with the University’s top-tier ranking on [the U.S. News & World Report] are tools we can use to attract more and better students.”

Miciak said the AACSB measured each school by its faculty qualifications, assurance of learning (how well the students are performing) and the coordination with its University’s mission and strategic plan. He said he thinks the school performs well in all three facets, especially complying with the ethics and sustainability aspects of Duquesne’s mission.